Kaonashi Ga Suki

Take two parts pachinko, one part Plinko, and two parts pinball. Add in heaping spoonfuls of luck and skill. Mix it all up with some garish graphics and obnoxious music…and what do you get? Peggle Deluxe.

The objective of Peggle Deluxe sounds very simple. You have a playing field scattered with orange and blue pegs, with the blues significantly outnumbering the oranges. At the top of the field is a shooter. To advance to the next level, get rid of all the orange pegs by shooting a metal ball at them. Of course, accomplishing this is where the luck and skill come in. First of all, you only have ten balls per level. Second, the ball bounces everywhere, making its path unpredictable. Third is that in higher levels, the orange pegs are often hidden under clusters of blue pegs, which means that sometimes you’d have to waste a ball eliminating them first before getting to the orange pegs.

Thankfully, all is not lost, for there are several avenues of help. One is that there are a few ways of getting extra balls, such as your ball landing in the moving bucket at the bottom of the screen, or by scoring a certain number of points on a shot. Another is that at every level, you have access to two green pegs, and hitting them unleashes a Magic Power. Magic Powers differ from stage to stage (there are five levels per stage), and offer cool things such as multiball, pinball flippers, or automatically destroying one fifth of the orange pegs on the field.

Peggle Deluxe offers several modes of play. Adventure is the regular game, while Quick Play allows you to replay levels you’ve unlocked in Adventure. Duel mode allows you to play against the computer or a friend online. Challenge mode presents 75 new challenges for advanced players and is unlocked only after completing Adventure mode.

One question that may arise in playing this game is, “If the ball is unpredictable where it bounces, is there even any strategy involved in playing the game?” Well, yes and no. According to an email I received from one of Peggle Deluxe’s creators, the ratio of luck to skill shifts as you advance in stages. In the first two stages, it’s more of 60% luck and 40% skill. Somewhere around the fourth and fifth stages the ratio balances out, and by the time you get near the last couple of stages it becomes 20% luck and 80% skill. It’s not hard to see why; you rely more on skill and strategy as you encounter more complex playing fields. At the same time however, I’ve noticed that there’s still a healthy dose of luck required in later stages since the position of the orange pegs is randomized.

Peggle Deluxe is fun to play, though I wouldn’t consider it to be nearly as addictive as some of the other puzzle games out there. I never felt that nagging sensation of “Just one more level!” The game is by no means boring though. I like that there’s a lot of variety involved- in the different levels, the Magic Powers, and the appearances of the playing fields. There’s always something new after every level and stage. I also like that it’s not a clone of any existing game. There’s more Tetris, Bejeweled, and Diner Dash ripoffs than I can count. Yes it has elements of pinball and pachinko, but it blends them nicely and doesn’t directly copy one or the other.

One of my biggest complaints about Peggle Deluxe however, has nothing to do with game play, but rather with its, shall we say, ambience. I found that the graphics and sound were too over-the-top and assaulting to the senses. The odd thing is that the actual in-game music is nice and subtle, and the playing fields don’t look that outrageous. Perhaps it’s because the creators were recreating the pachinko/pinball feeling of loud colors and music, but I found both to be overly dramatic. For example, as the ball is about to hit the last orange peg, it zooms in close on the ball as it flies in slow motion towards that peg. Once it makes contact, you get fireworks, rainbows, and “EXTREME FEVER” plastered on the screen while “Ode to Joy” blares in the background. It’s amusing the first couple of times you see this, but it occurs at EVERY level. Fortunately to save your sanity, you can lower (or mute) “Ode to Joy” and uncheck the slo-mo function, but the rest of the loud graphics remains.

Overall, Peggle Deluxe is a good game. If you’re in the mood for a unique puzzle game and wouldn’t mind some annoying graphics and music, then check it out.